Persnickety
by Qindarka
Summary: "See? A book. A fictional book. And there are gnomes in here, Tweek, I'll bet you anything, and that just proves they're nothing more than imagination." SLASHish CraigTweek


**[the hardest part of this was coming up with the title *SOB* my brother-in-law gave me a random word just so I could get it over with ahaha ldkfjasd]**

**Christ, I kind of love this, even though it's cheesy as hell LOL I am a huge disneytard so this stupid lovey-dovey mushy gushy crap gets me right here, man, right in my cold black heart. **

**Anyway this is for a contest :O at dA. The theme is fairy tale! I have this weird thing where…if I'm given a prompt-type thing for something, I want to try and approach it, like, unconventionally. So instead of just flat out making this a fairy tale, I did…this. I'm still coming off of **_**Aisle 10**_**, so I wanted to find a way to get a lot of Craig's voice in here without making it awkward and this worked for that, yay. Lol. **

**Right, so I made up the fairy tale. I told it to about nine people to see if it sounded right and get advice on how to fill in the blanks, so it changed a lot over time (like a real fairy tale! 8D), but I did make it up :O any similarities to any Disney movies are probably not accidental since I watch them quite religiously LOL any other similarities to non-disney fairy tales are purely coincidental, though. **

**Clyde and Token exist to point out my plot holes (they're Craig's, technically, muahaha), so I'm aware of them, and the ending is SUPER CHEESE, but I like it anyway and I hope you do too ;D! enjoy!**

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It's a quarter to four when Craig finally steps into the air-conditioned confines of the library, and, being that he's over an hour late, he's quite _ardently_ hoping to God that his friends have given up on him showing up and have left already. They could call him a shitty group partner all they wanted, he could get an F-minus for his lack of participation if their teacher so desired, he could drop out of high school and never go to college and fail life, if that's what it took.

He still had fifteen minutes left to go home and catch the new Red Racer episode before it started, and that's all that mattered.

So what if the project was due on Monday and they were only starting it the Friday before? Who cares if Token had a funeral to attend Sunday and Clyde was getting his tonsils removed Saturday? If they couldn't understand the life-changing importance of Red Racer, then there was just no hope for them.

Craig quickly scans the library, his eyes sailing over the heads of the few stragglers still at school. From the few nerds behind their textbooks to the handful of girls chatting at the computers, none of them resemble his friends (or he thinks so, anyway, but he's not staying another moment longer to take a better look). Craig figures the fact that he was here at all and had _tried_ looking for them was a commendable effort, and retreats back to the door, ready to split before it's too late.

Except it _is_ too late.

At the last fraction of a second, just as he's turning to leave, Craig somehow manages to catch them out of the corner of his eye and his big mistake is making eye contact when he does. There they are, Token, Tweek, and Clyde, huddled at a round table in the corner, nearly hidden behind a towering shelf beside them, eyeing him eagerly. There's an empty chair between Tweek and Token, and Clyde is gesturing toward it and waving Craig down with such ferocity that it looks like his arm is going to fall off. There's no avoiding that kind of welcome, and Craig can only roll his eyes. There's no way out of this now, so with all the reluctance in the world, he hoists his bag securely upon his back, grits his teeth, and wanders toward them, a fake apologetic grin sliding onto his face as he does.

"Hey," he whispers when he's a few feet away, holding up a hand to greet them. "Sorry I'm late." He has an excuse ready, too, something about his teacher holding him behind for disrupting class or a classmate stopping him in the hall, but there's really no point in lying, since his friends had stopped thinking he gave two shits about them long ago. "Except not really, since you all know I'd rather be home watching Red Racer, or…anywhere else but here, actually. So…_sorry_, but _not_."

Token is out of his seat, though, meeting him halfway before he reaches them, tugging on his arm and near dragging him to the table. "Dude, _whatever_, just get your ass over here and help us."

"Alright, but I don't know how much help I can be for a class I slept through all year…"

"No, we don't care about _that_." Token shoves him in the direction of the empty chair, which Craig has to grab to brace himself from falling over. Token slips back into his seat. "It's _Tweek." _He jerks his head at the boy across the table."Fix him, would you?"

Craig doesn't understand immediately what this is supposed to mean. His gaze travels across the table, where class notes and textbooks are strewn about from the boys' attempt to study. His eyes rest upon a large, out of place looking pile of paper scraps, and unsurprisingly he sees Tweek sitting behind them. His eyes are clamped shut and he's whimpering to himself, tremors coursing through his body as he frantically shreds paper between his fingers.

"What's the matter with him…?" Craig wonders, eyeing the blond boy oddly.

Token sighs heavily. "It's the g-n-o-m-e-s."

He appears to have forgotten that Tweek can spell, too, because the words don't make it past blondie's radar. Suddenly it's like a switch is turned on inside of him and he's spazzing out, shrieking things like "underpants" and "gonna get me" and the whole library has their eyes on the four of them. The librarian is looking especially pissed.

"Oh God, are you serious? _Still_?" Craig demands.

"Make it stop!" Clyde moans, dragging his hands from where had been clawing at his eyelids to stick his fingers in his ears.

"He's been at this for twenty minutes already. He's going to get us kicked out."

Craig heaves a heavy sigh, throwing himself down in the chair and sidling close to Tweek. "Tweek, buddy, you gotta grow outta that weird shit."

Tweek appears to have noticed Craig's presence for the first time. His eyes slide open as his shaking momentarily stops and he glances at Craig next to him with wide confused eyes. "How do I 'grow out' of something that _follows me everywhere?"_

"There are no freakin' gnomes, man, you're just making them up to scare yourself."

Tweek twitches violently. "_Why would I want to_ _scare myself? _That sounds so…counter-productive! Way too much pressure! And they _are_ real! I've _seen_ them!_"_

_"_See, that's exactly what your problem is," Craig assesses. "You think they're _real_. They're not."

Tweek doesn't appear to hear this as he begins quivering again, now tugging painfully at his hair.

Craig shakes his head. "No, no, stop it, _stop_." He grabs Tweek's hands and extracts his fingers from his hair, placing them instead in the boy's lap and keeping his own hands there so Tweek's don't move again.

Craig thinks for a second, glancing about and seeing all the books around him, then gets an idea. "Look, I'll show you they're not real." He stands up, walking away from them and circling the nearby library shelves that, fortunately for him, happen to be part of the fiction section. Within a matter of minutes he spies a book spine that works for him and plucks the thing off the shelf.

He shoves the book in Tweek's face. "See? A book. A _fictional_ book." He runs a finger along the raised print of the title. "_Fairy Tales for Children_. And there are gnomes in here, Tweek, I'll bet you anything, and that just proves they're nothing more than imagination."

Tweek still looks frightened, but he's quiet now, his twitching something of a shiver, and he listens patiently. Craig takes advantage of this, turning his gaze back to the book to open it and flip through it carefully. "And what's more, I bet they're not so fucking scary, either. Less like gremlins, maybe more like ewoks. Small, curious, misunderstood. Let's see." After a brief glance at the index, he finds a page number that interests him and flips to it.

"Look, there's even a picture, lemme show you–" Then he takes a look at the illustration and recoils in horror. Whatever it is, it looks like a diseased and rotting evil dwarf. The liquid dripping from its face and fingers may or may not have been blood, but it was black and white so there was no way to tell.

'_That's fucking hideous, I think the kid would shit himself_.'

"Actually, I won't show you the picture. Because…because there's this story, too, and it's a lot better when you picture what it looks like yourself."

Tweek is still listening, albeit a bit quizzically now. Even Clyde and Token are paying attention, if only to see where Craig is going with this.

Craig takes this moment to briefly scan the text before him, and his face falls. This story isn't appropriate _at all_ for his cause. The only gnome present in the work is one that lives in front of a cave and brutally mutilates anyone who tries to steal his treasure. By the end, he's killed quite gruesomely, but not before he chopped up and ate five people. It's a fairy tale, all right; it's got the scary-as-all-hell factor down

Craig had intended to hand it to Tweek to read, to pacify him while the rest of them got to work, but there was no way he could let him read _that_. So Craig comes up with the next best idea on the spot.

"…And I'm going to _read_ the story to you."

Every eyebrow in Craig's audience raises curiously.

"Actually, no, I'll _paraphrase it_. And it's a good one, so shut up and pay attention."

The three of them exchange a glance, but listen they do.

"So, uh," Craig starts, staring down at the page, though not reading the words, and feeling slightly lucky that he possesses a smidgen of creativity, "so there's this…this _gnome_..."

"Wait!" Clyde protests loudly. A librarian shushes him.

"What?"

"It doesn't start with 'once upon a time'?"

"Yeah, what kind of fairy tale doesn't start like that?" adds Token with a smirk, and Craig has a feeling that if not Clyde, Token is at least on to him. He's the smart one, after all. Craig glares.

"Fine. _Once upon a time_…"

He pauses to eye his friends and they look pleased enough, so he continues.

"Once upon a time, there's this old guy living in a—"

"Where does the story take place?" Clyde interjects again.

"What difference does it make?"

"Plenty!"

Craig sighs. "It takes place in a kingdom far, far away, long, long ago, _okay_ Clyde?"

Clyde beams.

"So in this far, far away kingdom, there's an old man, right, living in a house—no, a _cottage_ at the end of the town, far away from everyone else 'cuz he's been ostracized and shit. The townspeople are assholes.

"The guy was poor, too. Dirt poor. He used to be a baker or something, and I guess he accidentally gave a man food poisoning and this takes place a million years ago so no one knew how to cure it and the guy _died_. So this old man lost his job, which really sucks balls because he's got _three daughters_."

"Are they hot?"

"Seriously? Does that _really_ matter?"

Clyde stares at him like he's crazy.

"Yes, fine, he has three smokin' daughters. Right, so it sucks that he's poor because he can't support them, and every night they're eating, like, field mice and chicken feed, it's nasty. They don't even have a _cow_.

"Since no one will give the guy a job and he's too old anyway, he has to rely on the daughters. They're old enough so normally I guess he'd marry them off to rich pricks, since that's what they did back then. Either that or they get jobs. Unfortunately, everyone in the town thought they were gross, poor, nasty, food-poisoning lepers (kinda like Kenny) so no one wanted to touch that family with a ten-foot pole. Assholes, right?"

"Why don't they just go to another town…?"

"I was just getting to that, Clyde. Thanks for asking.

"So, yeah, they _could _leave town, but all the other towns are too far away. Anyway, even if they did leave or if no one in town hated them, there was still something else that made it hard to marry or get jobs. Each daughter had an annoying personality defect.

"The oldest one, for instance, was smart. A friggin' brainiac. But she was _too_ smart. It was the kind of irritating, fat-headed smart that made everyone else look and feel dumb. No one wanted to hang out with her because she was a pompous little bitch. And no one wants to hire or marry a girl who's just going to make you feel like an idiot.

"The middle one was fun, like a real partier. But she was also dumb as a goddamn rock. Hell, rocks are probably smarter than her. She was the kind of dumb little douchenozzle that constantly interrupts fairy tales with mindless interjections that don't add to it, y'know? And no one wants to hire or marry a girl who's going to make you want to shoot yourself because she's such an idiot.

"And the youngest daughter happened to be the hottest one out of all three of them. In fact, the other two looked butt-ugly standing next to her. And she had a great personality or something. But _her_ problem was that she was scared of everything. I mean _everything_. Big holes, cockroaches, the dark, tall trees, that foam that sits on top of beer—"

"Hey!" Clyde interrupted. "Tweek's afraid of those things, too!"

"…Right." Craig glanced at Token. "See what I mean about being a douchenozzle? Huh, smarty?"

Token gave him a half-hearted smirk.

"Like I was saying, she's scared of everything. She hardly ever left the house. Who knows if anyone wanted to marry her or give her a job? She was too afraid to find out.

"So this family was in one hell of a pickle. Finally one day, the old guy decided he was sick of his family being poor and smelly and outcast. He gathered his girls around him then, and told them this legend of a cave outside of town that was rumored to hold a great treasure. Anyone who went to go find it never came back, so apparently something was happening to those people—"

"How did they know there was a treasure there if no one ever came back?"

"They _assumed_ so, Clyde, okay? I don't have all the goddamn answers. I wasn't there.

"So when the daughters heard this story, they got really excited about it, just like their dad wanted. The oldest girl thought she was too smart to ever be in danger, so she agreed to go. The second girl was too dumb to consider the risk, so she agreed to go because she thought it would be a lot of fun. Only the youngest daughter objected because she was too afraid. So her older sisters left without her.

"Weeks passed and the girls didn't return. The old man worried every day about his daughters, wondering if they were safe or dead. The youngest daughter didn't want to see her father sad anymore so she decided to put her fears aside and step into the world to find her sisters. She left home and traveled for a very long time until she finally found the cave she was looking for.

"However, to her utmost horror, standing before the cave was the most hideous looking…_gnome_ she had ever seen."

At the keyword, as if on cue, Tweek suddenly shrieks, flailing and yelling out, "DON'T GO IN! THEY'RE NOT WORTH IT!" This time the entire library turns around to stare at them and the librarian actually tells them that they have to leave if they don't keep it down. It takes both Craig and Clyde seizing Tweek and slamming their hands over his mouth to get him to shut up. Craig has to remind him about thirty times that it's just a story, and when Tweek finally subsides with a whimper, Craig continues.

"Right, so as Tweek so accurately demonstrated, the daughter was _terrified, _because gnomes just happened to be her greatest fear. She often imagined them in her room at night stealing her undergarments, and she lost a lot of sleep staying awake to catch them. And now here was one before her, with a stupid haircut and fucked-up teeth and he's big and blue and mean looking. He's so terrifying that the girl fainted on the goddamn spot."

"Big? _Blue?"_ Clyde asks incredulously.

"Yes. Is there a problem with that?"

"Well, _yeah_, I thought gnomes looked like little dwarves. Er, littl_er_ dwarves."

"Okay, well, _this_ gnome is big and blue. He's got some troll in him, on his mother's side."

"Is that what it says in the book?" Token asks condescendingly.

Craig flips him off.

"_Nghh_, what happens next?" Tweek squeaks quietly behind his fingers.

"Right, sorry. Uh, when the girl woke up, it was night and…she was on a bed of leaves, there was a damp cloth on her head and a fire going on beside her, which the gnome was tending to. The girl was scared when she saw him, but realized that if he hadn't eaten her yet, maybe he wasn't such a bad guy.

"The girl gathered her courage and asked the gnome why he didn't eat her. He told her that it's because he didn't _want_ to eat her, but what he didn't tell her is that even if he _did_ want to eat her, he wouldn't have anyway, because he thought she was the most beautiful human he had ever seen.

"Then the girl asked the gnome if he'd seen her sisters, because they had gone out looking for this cave. The gnome was more interested in the girl now than he was before. He asked her, 'you're not here for the treasure?' The girl replied, 'maybe one day I might have been, but my sisters are more important than all the treasure in the world.'

"The gnome was impressed. Most people journeyed to the cave, took one look at the gnome, and thought, 'look, a grody-ass monster! Obviously he's standing in front of a cave 'cuz he's hiding treasure in it, like a huge dick!' Then, even if the gnome tried to stop them, they would run into the cave and never come out.

"Because it wasn't any ordinary cave. There was no treasure inside it; instead, it was cursed. Any regular person to enter it was stuck in it forever until the curse was broken. The gnome himself was cursed to stand in front of the cave for all of eternity, making it seem like there was something to be guarded inside. Due to the curse, the gnome was also unable to warn anyone of the dangers of going inside. He could only stand there looking mean and angry, thus inviting more selfish and curious assholes to go poking their heads inside.

"But not this girl. Not only was she beautiful, the gnome discovered, but she was kind and selfless. She didn't care about the treasure and overlooked his ugly appearance to trust him, all for the sake of her sisters.

"The gnome said, 'I wish I could help you find your sisters,' because he did know what had happened to them. They had gone into the cave before the third daughter arrived, with the first thinking she was too smart for the gnome's 'tricks' and the other following her in because she was fucking stupid. Like everyone else, they were also stuck in the cave. Because of his curse, the gnome couldn't tell the girl all this, but even without the curse, he wouldn't have told her anyway, because he knew if she went in there after them, she couldn't come out, and he wanted to protect her."

"It's a trick! Why is he being so nice?"

"No, Tweek," Token chides, "he just _looks _like an asshole, but he's actually supposed to be a nice guy. Deep, deep, _deep_ down. Kinda like Craig."

"Yeah, thanks. Can I continue?

"So the girl was disappointed that the gnome can't help her. She thanked him for being so kind to her and started to leave, but not before giving him a kiss. On the cheek. For not eating her or being a jerk, like she thought gnomes were supposed to be. She thus discovered that she had gotten over her greatest fear. And so, with her newfound bravery, she decided to go search the cave, just in case her sisters did go in there.

"So, she ran off toward the cave. The gnome (who's still looking like a fool after he'd just gotten a kiss from the super cute maiden), realized what she was doing and ran after her. Not wanting her to go in any deeper than the mouth of the cave, he did the only thing he thought he could and threw himself in front of her, falling into the cave in the process.

"When he fell in, he saw the crowds of people that had passed him into the cave before. They all looked weary and cold and hungry. Not more than a second passed after this when suddenly the walls of the cave started to collapse. All the people inside ran out the cave and broke through the invisible barrier they weren't able to before. Everyone but the gnome made it out alive just as the cave crumbled.

"After the girl was reunited with her sisters, she ran back to the rubble of the cave, looking for her friend. When she found him, he was no longer a troll, but instead a super mega foxy AWESOME hot…_prince_. The Prince of…_Tuckerton_."

"Really," Token asks in a deadpan voice.

"Yeah, _really_.

"He explained to her that long ago, before he became a gnome, he had heard the rumors of the treasure in the cave, and greedily traveled a far distance to get it, even though he had so much money already. He didn't realize how dangerous it was, and foolishly went inside. The curse of the cave had turned him into the ugly gnome he had been, and he was forced to watch person after person get stuck in the cave.

"Um, so… he _thanked_ the maiden for helping him turn back to normal and rewarded her family with a lot of money and land and he gave them all royal _jobs_ or something. The lesson of the story was…not to judge a book by its cover and…um…not to be scared of everything, but…to still be careful! And, uh… it all worked out for everyone. And that is why gnomes aren't real and aren't scary. The end."

The boys fall to awkward silence as Craig shuts the book and places it on the table.

"Well, that was terrible," Token says finally.

"Yeah, there weren't even any dragons in it!" Clyde adds.

"Forget you guys," Craig mumbles, flipping them off with both hands. "That was _freakin gold_. You think Disney would buy it from me?"

Token scoffs "Disney already has a film like that. It's called _Beauty and the Beast_."

"And I detected a hint of _Aladdin_ in there."

"Fuck off, both of you!"

"W-wait!" Tweek protests. "What happens with the prince? He…he doesn't marry the girl?"

Craig blinks at him. "Um, did you want him to?"

"That's just how this shit usually ends, man! They belong together!"

Craig chuckles. "Well, in that case…

"When the prince tells the girl about the cave turning him into a gnome, the girl becomes frightened and thinks that there are so many things to be afraid of in the world. The prince tells her that…that he's _glad_ he was turned into a gnome. Because…because if he hadn't, the maiden never would have overcome her fears and gotten close to him. And…he never would have met her. Not everything in the world that seems strange or mysterious is scary. He tells her to live freely and…safely, and know that there is a light at the ends of most tunnels.

"For him, his light was her. And…they fell in love. And they explored the world and fought dragons and…did homework in the library together, and he protected her and she protected him. And they were happy. Right, Tweek?"

Clyde groans and Token tries to gag himself, but Tweek...Tweek, so absorbed by Craig's words, doesn't react right away, hardly responds. But he finally nods, playing with his fingers and glancing away to smile gently at his abandoned pile of paper scraps.

It's in this same moment that, as a heavy layer of awkward falls between Tweek and Craig and Token and Clyde, the librarian stalks past their table and curtly informs them that the library has closed. It's five o'clock.

The boys pack up their things, shouldering their backpacks, and following each other out the library, out the school, and onto the sidewalk.

"Sorry we didn't get any work done," Craig says, except he's not really sorry since he'd enjoyed telling that story far more than working on a project. "We can continue this at my house, if you want."

Token grins. "Nice. Very mature of you." He clamps a hand on Craig's shoulder. "Sorry you missed Red Racer."

"Eh, it's cool," Craig says, "I set my DVR to record It, anyway."

He can tell Token is fighting the reflexive urge to say something, probably along the lines of, "you selfish whiny bastard," but Token doesn't say that. Instead, Clyde runs by screaming, "woo! Party at Craig's house! First one there gets forty bucks from Token!" and Token, of course, has to run after him.

Craig begins to follow, walking along at a leisurely pace, when Tweek quietly ambles up beside him. Without warning, he slips his hand into Craig's empty one, clutching at it timidly. Craig goes red in the face, blinking over at him in surprise.

"They live happily ever after, too, right, Craig?" Tweek asks, shyly gazing up at him.

Craig grins. "Yeah, Tweek. They do." He squeezes his hand, tugging on it now. "C'mon, I want forty bucks from Token." And they run after them.

THE END~ LOLOLOL 8)


End file.
